ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the interventionist potential of Amsterdam-based photographer Angèle Etoundi Essamba’s work vis-à-vis the exploitative gaze to which slavery and colonialism have historically subjected the black female body. Using Freida High Tesfagiorgis’ concept of Afrofemcentrism, it analyses Essamba’s work as a counterpoint to the scientific discourse that has legitimised the visual dissections and denigrations of black women’s bodies throughout Western culture. The chapter shows that Essamba’s endeavour to reclaim the black female body by underscoring its strength, femininity, and complexity is a clear political and social engagement in a space (the museum, art history) where black women (as subjects and objects) have suffered a long history of marginalisation. By blending the study of visual culture with an assessment of historical racisms, this chapter provides a timely contextualisation of Essamba’s Cameroonian–Dutch art that goes beyond aesthetic content as an African European counter-discourse.
